Thesis advisor: Krzysztof Kempa / In my work presented in this dissertation, I have focused on simulation studies of light interaction with nanostructures made of metals and dielectrics. Of particular interest have been plasmonic effects. The structures included the wire and coaxial nanowaveguides, as well as periodic arrays of planar quasi-triangles, and periodic arrays of nanoholes in thin metallic films. In the nanowaveguides I focused on plasmon polariton modes which resemble the TEM modes propagating in the corresponding conventional radio transmission lines. This collaborative research, involving an experimental effort, showed how the nanoscopic plasmon polariton modes reduce in the retarded limit to the TEM modes, and in the non-retarded limit to the corresponding surface plasmon modes. My simulations explained details of recent experimental results involving plasmonic waveguiding in metallic nanowires. Similar results have been obtained for nanocoaxial waveguides. My simulations of the optical absorption in the arrays of nano quasi-triangles, recently observed experimentally, helped identify those as due to Mie plasmonic resonances in these nanoparticles. They also explained the peak shifts in terms of the 2D surface plasmon dispersion, and the plasmon momentum quantization. In the study of the arrays evolution from holes to quasi-triangles, my simulations provided the clue to the critical behavior of the peak position for structures approaching the percolation threshold (the transitional structure in the series, for which film resistance diverges), and allowed to identify the series of structures as an analog of the percolation threshold problem. Finally, I have simulated optical performance of nanorod arrays (or multi-core nanocoax), which have been employed as platform for novel solar cells. My simulations have been employed to predict and optimize these cells. My work resulted in 5 publications and 2 manuscripts in preparation. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Physics.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BOSTON/oai:dlib.bc.edu:bc-ir_101625 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Peng, Yun |
| Publisher | Boston College |
| Source Sets | Boston College |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, thesis |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. |
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